Yesterday was a big day for The Eric Trap blog tour. We took four virtual stops and people had some great stuff to say! So, let’s get started.

The first stop is over at the Compel Blog, which is the kidmin encouragement/resource blog for the Church of God of Prophecy denomination. Jason Vernon, the blog’s author is the senior pastor at RTP Community Church (which I wrote about a few weeks ago). He’s a great guy and I’m so glad to get the perspective of a senior pastor for this book. What spoke to him most was the chapter on delegation. Craig Gyergyo who wrote that chapter did an incredible job approaching delegation in a very unique way. Many of us do a great job delegating tasks, but we don’t delegate authority, which is huge. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Read Jason’s review here.

Stop two was an unexpected surprise. It really is great getting reviews from a variety of perspectives, including senior leaders, volunteers and others. However, I wasn’t expecting a review from a physician with a background in psychiatry. Let me tell you, Steve Grcevich from the Church4EveryChild blog had a completely different perspective. He reviewed this book from an “underneath the surface” view of the underlying reasons why Eric struggles the way he did. Steve, thank you for your perspective, it was so informative and refreshing. Please, check out this review as I think you’ll learn a lot from what he had to say.

Stop three included a review from my long-time blog/twitter friend Wendy Douglas. It was great to get her perspective, as she is a volunteer. When you talk to her, you wouldn’t know it. How much do I love volunteers like Wendy. In her review, she identifies with Eric’s struggle and she made a very important point. This book wasn’t written to point out how some children’s pastors/leaders fall short and need to get better at being a leader, but it reveal common flaws that ALL of us share. I’ll blog more about this later. Check out the review, it’s a great one!

The last stop of the Eric Trap (for the day) was over at Mike Rubin’s Providence Blog. Mike suggested renaming the book, “The Mike Trap.” Hmmm, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it… but I’ll be happy to cross out “Eric” on the cover and write your name in for you. I appreciate that Mike did point out something I’ve forgotten to reference in these posts. One of the best parts of each chapter is the “My Eric Trap” section at the end of every chapter. This section gives you a chance to ask yourself (or your team) a set of probing questions. It’s one thing to read the book, but another thing to start putting the principles in action and that’s what these sections are about. Check out Mike’s blog here.

We’ll that’s Day 8. Thanks everyone for participating, Day 9 looks to be just as exciting!

Meet Kenny

Kenny Conley has written 1844 posts on CMO.

Kenny Conley is the primary author of Childrens Ministry Online and the NextGen Pastor at Gateway Church in Austin, TX. In addition to creating the Illuminate Conference, a high quality kidmin conference designed specifically for volunteers, Kenny is a published author and speaker. For more biographical info, click here.